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Russian
President
Vladimir
Putin
and
Denis
Pushilin,
Leonid
Pasechnik,
Vladimir
Saldo,
Yevgeny
Balitsky,
who are
the
Russian-installed
leaders
in
Ukraine's
Donetsk,
Luhansk,
Kherson
and
Zaporizhzhia
regions,
attend a
ceremony
to
declare
the
annexation
of the
Russian-controlled
territories
of four
Ukraine's
Donetsk,
Luhansk,
Kherson
and
Zaporizhzhia
regions,
after
holding
what
Russian
authorities
called
referendums
in the
occupied
areas of
Ukraine
that
were
condemned
by Kyiv
and
governments
worldwide,
in the
Georgievsky
Hall of
the
Great
Kremlin
Palace
in
Moscow,
Russia,
September
30,
2022.
Sputnik/Mikhail
Metzel/Pool
via
REUTERS |
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Cars
destroyed
by a
Russian
missile
strike,
that hit
a convoy
of
civilian
vehicles
amid
Russia's
attack
on
Ukraine,
are seen
in
Zaporizhzhia,
Ukraine
September
30,
2022.
REUTERS/Stringer |
| |
Putin
proclaims
annexation
as
Russian
garrison
surrounded
in
Ukraine
By Peter
Graff,
Editing
by
Robert
Birsel,
Angus
MacSwan
and Alex
Richardson
reuters.com
ZAPORIZHZHIA,
Ukraine
-
President
Vladimir
Putin
proclaimed
Russia's
annexation
of a
swath of
Ukraine
on
Friday
in a
speech
at the
Kremlin
but the
event
was
overshadowed
by one
of
Russia's
worst
battlefield
defeats
of the
war,
with one
of its
main
garrisons
surrounded.
"People
living
in
Luhansk,
Donetsk,
Kherson
region
and
Zaporizhzhia
region
are
becoming
our
compatriots
forever,"
Putin
told a
crowd of
officials
in a
ceremony
in an
ornate
hall.
"We will
defend
our land
with all
our
strength
and all
our
means,"
he said,
calling
on "the
Kyiv
regime
to
immediately
cease
hostilities
and
return
to the
negotiation
table".
Putin's
proclamation
of
Russian
rule
over 15%
of
Ukraine
- the
biggest
annexation
in
Europe
since
World
War Two
- has
been
firmly
rejected
by
Western
countries
and even
many of
Russia's
close
allies.
U.N.
General
Secretary
Antonio
Guterres
called
it an
illegal
violation
of the
U.N.
charter.
It comes
as
Russian
forces
have
faced
setbacks
on the
battlefield,
with one
of the
worst so
far
looming
even as
Putin
spoke.
Pro-Russian
officials
acknowledged
that
Russian
troops
were on
the
verge of
encirclement
in
Lyman,
their
main
garrison
in the
north of
Donetsk
province.
Defeat
there
could
open the
way for
Ukraine
to
recapture
swathes
of the
territory
that
Putin
has now
declared
to be
part of
Russia.
The
war's
brutality
was
further
hammered
home
just
hours
before
Putin's
speech
when
missiles
struck a
convoy
of
civilian
cars
preparing
to cross
the
frontline
from
Ukrainian-held
territory
in
Zaporozhzhia
province.
Reuters
saw a
dozen
bodies
amid
blasted
cars in
a scene
of
carnage.
Ukraine
said 25
people
had been
killed
and 74
wounded.
"The
enemy is
raging
and
seeking
revenge
for our
steadfastness
and his
failures,"
Ukrainian
President
Volodymyr
Zelenskiy
wrote on
Telegram.
"Bloodthirsty
scum!
You will
definitely
answer.
For
every
lost
Ukrainian
life!"
LYMAN
The
encirclment
of
Russia's
garrison
at Lyman
leaves
Ukrainian
forces
an open
path to
seize
more
territory
in
Luhansk
and
Donetsk
provinces,
captured
earlier
in some
of the
war's
bitterest
fighting.
The
pro-Russian
leader
in
Donetsk
acknowledged
troops
had lost
full
control
of
Yampil
and
Dobryshev,
villages
north
and east
of the
city of
Lyman,
leaving
Moscow's
garrison
"half-encircled".
The
Ukrainian
army was
"trying
at all
costs to
spoil
our
historic
events",
Denis
Pushilin
said.
"This is
very
unpleasant
news,
but we
must
look
soberly
at the
situation
and draw
conclusions
from our
mistakes."
Ukraine's
military
said it
was
withholding
details
of the
situation
on the
battlefield
until
the area
was
stabilised,
but that
an
operation
was
under
way to
encircle
Russian
forces.
"All the
approaches
and
logistic
routes
of the
enemy,
through
which
they
delivered
ammunition
and
manpower,
are in
fact
under
fire
control"
of the
Ukrainian
army,
said
Serhii
Cherevatyi,
a
spokesperson
Ukrainian
troops
in the
east.
Ukrainian
lawmaker
Oleksiy
Goncharenko
tweeted:
"Lyman
is
surrounded!
The
Ukrainian
army is
already
in
Yampil.
The
Russian
army is
trying
to
escape."
Pro-Russian
military
bloggers
reported
Ukrainian
forces
had cut
off the
escape
of
thousands
of
Russian
troops.
Pushilin
said one
road to
Lyman
was
still
open,
though
he
acknowledged
it was
now
under
Ukrainian
artillery
fire.
SHEETS
DRAPED
OVER
BODIES
Hours
before
Putin
spoke,
missiles
tore
through
a convoy
of
civilian
cars
preparing
to cross
from
Ukrainian-held
territory
near
Zaporizhzhia
into the
Russian-occupied
zone,
killing
at least
23
civilians.
Ukrainian
officials
called
it a
deliberate
Russian
attempt
to sever
the last
links
across
the
front.
Moscow
blamed
the
Ukrainians.
The
convoy
was
assembling
at a car
park
near
Zaporizhzhia,
the
Ukrainian-held
capital
of a
region
Moscow
claims
to be
annexing.
One
checkpoint
in the
area has
been
open in
recent
days
allowing
civilians
to cross
the
frontline.
A crater
had been
gouged
in the
ground.
The
impact
had
thrown
chunks
of dirt
into the
air and
sprayed
shrapnel
across
cars
packed
with
belongings,
blankets
and
suitcase.
Reuters
saw
around a
dozen
bodies.
Plastic
sheets
were
draped
over the
bodies
of a
woman
and
young
man in a
green
car. Two
bodies
lay in a
white
mini-van
in front
of
another
car, its
windows
blown
out and
the
sides
pitted
with
shrapnel.
The
corpse
of an
elderly
woman
lay
nearby,
next to
her
shopping
bag.
A woman
who gave
her name
as
Nataliya
said she
and her
husband
had
visited
their
children
in
Zaporizhzhia
and were
preparing
to cross
back
into
Russian-held
territory.
"We were
returning
to my
mother
who is
90 years
old. We
have
been
spared.
It's a
miracle,"
she
said,
standing
with her
husband
beside
their
car.
Police
Colonel
Sergey
Ujryumov,
head of
the
Zaporizhzhia
police's
explosives
disposal
unit,
said the
car park
was hit
by three
S300
missiles.
Pro-Russian
officials
said,
without
evidence,
that
Ukraine
was to
blame
for the
attack.
Russia
has
always
denied
its
forces
target
civilians,
despite
countless
confirmed
incidents
documented
by the
United
Nations
and
other
bodies.
ESCALATION
Russia's
annexation
of the
Russian-occupied
areas of
Donetsk,
Luhansk,
Kherson
and
Zaporizhzhia
was
being
carried
out
after
what the
West
denounced
as
phoney
referendums
at
gunpoint.
Since
Putin's
troops
were
forced
to flee
from
Ukraine's
Kharkiv
province
this
month,
he has
chosen
to
escalate
the war.
Last
week he
endorsed
the
annexation
of
Russian-held
territory,
ordered
the
call-up
of
hundreds
of
thousands
of
reservists,
and
threatened
to use
nuclear
weapons
if
Russia
was
attacked.
Zelenskiy
promised
a strong
response
to the
annexations
and
summoned
his
defence
and
security
chiefs
for an
emergency
meeting
on
Friday.
Reporting
by
Reuters
bureaux;
Writing
by Peter
Graff;
Editing
by
Robert
Birsel,
Angus
MacSwan
and Alex
Richardson
Our
Standards:
The
Thomson
Reuters
Trust
Principles.
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